Hit ordered because she refused to commit a fraud, law enforcement
sources claim

The U.S. consulate worker murdered in Juarez in mid-March was
approached in the days prior to her death by a man seeking to get her
to sign off on an official document absent the proper paperwork.

Her refusal to cooperate with the man led to an order for her
assassination from the top level of the Sinaloa drug trafficking
organization. The murder was carried out by Sinaloa hit man with the
nickname El Guero, who was assisted by individuals associated with the
Aztecas, a criminal gang operating in Juarez and across the border in
El Paso, Texas; and with La Linea, a “line” of corrupt Mexican law
enforcers.

That information was provided to Narco News recently by law
enforcement sources who claim it is credible intelligence that has
not, to date, been seriously investigated due to turf wars, both
within and between law enforcement agencies involved in the murder
investigation.

“An individual approached her [at least twice in consulate-related
settings prior to her murder] and tried to get her to do something
with a document without the proper paperwork,” one law enforcer
claims. “Her murder was ordered because she refused to go along with
it.”

On March 13, Lesley A. Enriquez, who worked as an assistant in the
American Citizens Services section of the U.S. Consulate in Juarez,
and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, a detention officer with the El
Paso County Sheriffs Office, were both shot dead in their vehicle
after leaving a private birthday party in Juarez.

Enriquez, who was pregnant, died of a gunshot wound to the head (a
mark of an assassination); Redelfs was shot in the neck and arm; the
couple’s child, an infant, was in the back seat – and left unharmed.

Enriquez' uncle, Jose Antonio Enriquez Savignac, once served as
Secretary of Tourism in Mexico, according to Mexican press reports.

At about the same time Enriquez and Redelfs (both U.S. citizens who
lived in the El Paso area) were gunned down that Saturday afternoon in
March, assassins hit another individual, who also had attended the
same birthday party. That attack left Mexican citizen Jorge Alberto
Salcido Ceniceros dead in his vehicle. Early media reports indicated
that Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes claimed Salcido may have once worked as a
Mexican cop. Later media reports claim he worked as a manager at a
maquiladora factory.

Facts and Fictions

In fact, many of the facts in this murder mystery keep changing across
various media reports. For example, Enriquez’ daughter apparently
ranges in age from three months to a year old; Salcido has either two
or three children who were with him at the time of his murder; and
Enriquez and her husband, Redelfs, have each been identified as the
driver of the car on the day of their murders, depending on which
media report you choose to read.

One fact that seems to be consistent is that Salcido’s wife, also a
Mexican citizen, works for the U.S. Consulate in Juarez as well, in
the Consular Services section, according to Silvio Gonzalez, spokesman
for the consulate.

In that role, Gonzalez confirms, Salcido’ wife would have had some
exposure to visa applications from Mexican citizens seeking to travel
to the U.S. However, Gonzalez says Enriquez did not deal with visa
applications as part of her duties with the American Citizen Services
section. He did confirm, though, that Enriquez would have assisted
individuals with various other travel-related documents, such as U.S.
passports and consular reports of births abroad.

Last month, the Mexican military arrested a total of six Azteca gang
members in connection with the March 13 murders of Enriquez, Redelfs
and Salcido. One of those gangsters, according to the Mexican
government, allegedly confessed that the primary target of the March
13 murders was Redelfs, not Enriquez. Redelfs was supposedly marked
for assassination as payback for his mistreatment of Azteca members
imprisoned in the El Paso County jail – where Redelfs worked as a
guard.

The Azteca gang member who confessed, Ricardo Valles de la Rosa,
claims he was tortured by the Mexican military, according to media
reports.

Law enforcement sources who spoke with Narco News say the Mexican
government’s line on the murders, which has been repeated as though it
were fact in many press reports, doesn’t pass the smell test

“That (jail-guard-abuse) theory is a weak story,” one law enforcement
source says. “He (Redelfs) would have known better than to mess with
the Aztecas.”

Chris Acosta, spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriffs Office, says
she knows of no evidence that Redelfs mistreated any prisoners. “He
was an outstanding employee,” she adds.

Motive and Theory

The information provided to Narco News by law enforcement sources
pointing to Enriquez as the main target of the murders, like the
Redelfs-as-target theory of the murder, faces some proof hurdles.
However, the law enforcement sources indicate that the veracity of the
information could easily be checked out -- even by a mediocre
investigator. The fear is that such an investigation has not even been
pursued.

Among the questions raised by the Enriquez-as-target theory revolves
around the role of the third murder victim, Salcido. Why was he
killed?

One theory, advanced in the media, is that Salcido was killed by
mistake, because he was driving a vehicle, a white Honda Pilot, that
looked similar to Redelfs and Enriquez’ white Toyota RAV4.

The problem with that theory is that an attack as well-planned and
coordinated as the one carried out on March 13 would have likely
relied on license plates to make sure the right target was in the
scope. Enriquez and Redelfs lived in El Paso, and had U.S. plates on
their vehicle, whereas Salcido, a Mexican citizen, presumably had
Mexican plates on his auto. If that is the case, it raises the doubt
bar on the “mistake” theory quite high.

Another theory is that Salcido might have been the individual who
allegedly approached Enriquez about approving the document, and as a
result he was a loose end that needed to be taken care of if Enriquez
was going to be taken out.

That latter theory, however, is pure speculation, with nothing solid
at this point to back it up. Law enforcement sources indicate that
because the Enriquez-as-target information has not been pursued, as
far as they know, no information exists on who the individual was that
allegedly approached Enriquez, other than he was male.

Another question raised by the Enriquez-as-target theory is whether
she reported the alleged approach by the individual seeking to get her
to participate in a corrupt activity.

If so, was her report acted on appropriately and was her security
assured in the wake of that report? And if she did not report the
alleged approach, why not?

The law enforcement sources who provided Narco News with the
information could not say whether Enriquez reported the approach, only
that, for whatever reason, she refused to comply with the individual’s
request.

Gonzalez of the U.S. Consulate in Juarez declined to comment on
whether Enriquez reported any improper requests made of her in the
days prior to her murder.

“I’m not going to refute or say yes that something like that
happened,” Gonzalez told Narco News. “All I can tell you is that the
investigation is ongoing, and I believe the PGR [Mexican Attorney
General’s Office] in Mexico has the lead on it.”

In fact, on the latter matter, Gonzalez is correct. Assistant
Secretary of State Philip Crowley confirmed in a March 15 press
briefing that “Mexican authorities have the lead” in the investigation
of the U.S. Consulate-related murders, and “the FBI is consulting and
[State Department’s] Diplomatic Security is also consulting.”

El Paso Division FBI spokeswoman Special Agent Andrea Simmons says the
FBI has not stated what the motive is for the murders of Enriquez and
her husband.

“At this point, we have no reason to believe any of the three victims
were targeted because of they were U.S. citizens or because of their
jobs, but the investigation is continuing,” Simmons says.

She declined to comment on whether Enriquez was or was not approached
about approving improperly any documents prior to her murder.

Likewise, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic
Security declined to comment on the case other than to provide the
following “press guidance”:

This is an ongoing investigation. American officials are working
together with Mexican authorities to bring those who perpetrated the
crime to justice.

Factionalization

Now, for those addicted to the mainstream media script on the drug
war, the immediate reaction to the information provided to Narco News
by law enforcement sources might be that the Aztecas and La Linea work
for Vicente Carrillo Fuentes’ Juarez cartel, not “Chapo” Guzman’s
Sinaloa cartel. After all, that’s the whole premise of the MSM’s
coverage of the bloodshed in Juarez, that Vicente’s cartel is battling
Chapo’s cartel for control of the plaza.

Well, the reliance on the word “cartel” is part of the problem with
that MSM narrative. Law enforcers who spoke with Narco News indicate
that the situation in Juarez is much more fluid than the simplistic
structure assigned to it by most corporate journalists. There are no
monolithic organizations in the narco-business, they say, but rather a
collection of clan-like cells -- some more powerful than others -- who
are loosely associated based on arrangements of convenience,
intimidation and profit.

“They [the Aztecas and corrupt law enforcers who have been dubbed La
Linea] cross lines all the time,” says one law enforcer who has
experience on the border. “They work for whoever can give them the
most and for the money.”

Another law enforcement source, a former DEA undercover agent,
describes the scene this way:

The story among those who know is that the vast majority of those
murders [in Juarez] involve the targeting of cops and officials who
have chosen one cartel or the other to work for. It is then the
competing cartel that carries out the murders looking at the victims
as “members” or “associates” of the competing cartel. …

The history of power struggles within the Aztecas, for example, is
evidence of this factionalization factor in the narco-business. In
March 2008, the leader of the Aztecas, David “Chicho” Meraz, was found
in a parking lot in Juarez, dead, the victim of multiple stab wounds,
the presumed victim of a hit ordered by his rival in the gang, Eduardo
“Tablas” Ravelo.

Paper Crime

But there is one factor that is rarely talked about in the U.S. press
that does support the contention that Enriquez was the main target of
the murders due to her failure to play ball with a corrupt scheme
involving official Consulate documents.

Visa and passport fraud, as well as corruption within U.S. embassies,
is a fact of life overseas.

One source told Narco News about the existence of a “drug-lord
protective services” organization operating on an international level
that involves “corrupted Mexican and U.S. authorities in Mexico.”

“[This organization] provides passports, visas to the U.S. and other
real travel documents for Colombian and Mexican drug lords for safe
passage to the U.S., Canada and Europe,” asserts the source, who for
safety reasons, cannot be identified.

The source’s allegations of embassy corruption dovetail with similar
allegations raised in a document known as the Kent Memo, which was
written by a Justice Department attorney assigned to a wiretap unit in
the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section.

The Kent Memo, which became international news after it was leaked to
Narco News, contains some of the most serious allegations ever raised
against U.S. antinarcotics officers: that U.S. agents stationed in the
U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, are on drug traffickers’ payrolls,
complicit in the murders of informants who knew too much, and, most
startlingly, directly involved in helping Colombia’s infamous
rightwing paramilitary death squads to launder drug money.

U.S. authorities have never seriously investigated the allegations in
the Kent Memo, however.

But the State Department has investigated other cases of alleged
embassy and consulate corruption. According to a recent report by the
Bureau of Diplomatic Security, its investigators at U.S. diplomatic
missions worldwide in 2009 arrested “691 suspects involved in visa,
passport and other fraud” and investigated “an additional 89 cases of
alleged nonviolent crimes and administrative violations [by embassy
and consulate personnel] at post, or involving Department personnel
elsewhere.”

Earlier this month, a former federal agent pleaded guilty to charges
related to the issuance of false visas approved based on his referrals
while he served as the ATF Assistant Country Attaché at the U.S.
Embassy in Mexico City.

In fact, as evidence of the seriousness and extent of passport- and
visa-fraud schemes, in 2009, the State Department’s recently created
Consular Integrity Division “conducted its first ‘red cell’ operation
to detect malfeasance and corruption within the passport adjudication
process,” states the report by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

“As part of this exercise, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security [DS]
submitted fraudulent applications into the passport system and then
closely monitored the progress of the fraudulent applications,” the
report states. “Based on the results of the exercise, DS identified
vulnerabilities in the passport process. …”

Given those realities, it seems U.S. agents involved in the ongoing
investigation into the March 13 Juarez Consulate murders are surely
exploring the passport/visa fraud angle and poring over the voluminous
consulate records in that pursuit. It would be a shame if, as Narco
News’ law enforcement sources allege, information vital to that line
of investigation has been deep-sixed due to petty egos and turf
battles or to protect the bureaucratic brass from international
embarrassment.

“The U.S. and Mexican government will try to pass on [to the press]
some BS story [about the motive for the consulate murders],” says one
law enforcer. “And it will be something not as bad as the reality.”